Koharu Midorinawa
Koharu Midorinawa ''(緑縄琥''春'' Midorinawa Koharu), nicknamed "Haru" (ハル), is a second-year student at U.A. High training to be a Pro Hero. Appearance Haru is a tall girl with a lanky physique and long legs. She has green hair that just about reaches her shoulders with long bangs that cover the right side of her face. Her left eye is amber. She always wears a dark gray slouch beanie with a small golden bell on the tip, even in her hero costume. The right side of her face is marred with long scars. Her right eye is missing and the eyelid is permanently shut. Her right ear also has a few small notches in it around the edge. Unlike her fellow female classmates, she wears pants with her school uniform instead of a skirt. She typically leaves her jacket or vest open and her shirt untucked. Her costume consists of a long sleeved running shirt with a high collar that is meant to resemble the outfit of a court jester. The top left and bottom right quadrants are colored neon green while the top right and bottom left quadrants as well as the collar are colored forest green. At the ends of the sleeves are small purple frill patterns. Printed around the collar are purple suit symbols typically found on playing cards. Going clockwise from the front, the order of the suits is diamond, spade, heart, and club; this pattern repeats four times. Haru also wears neon green goggles, a green belt with a round bronze buckle, dark green capris, and neon green running shoes with upturned toes. Personality Haru is a very fun-loving and easygoing person. She enjoys making others laugh and often pulls pranks on her classmates. She's never malicious, though, ensuring she doesn't overstep any boundaries so that everything stays fun for everyone. Her playful attitude carries over into battle and has a lot of influence on her improvised fighting style. Despite how laid back and carefree she appears, she's actually quite perceptive. A lot of the time, her "messing around" in combat is really a distraction to mask what she's and/or her allies are actually plotting. Secretly, Haru isn't entirely serious about pursuing a career as a Pro Hero. She only decided to do so because all her parental figures had become heroes and she couldn't really envision another professional future for herself as a result. Additionally, she only attended U.A. because the school was recommended to her, not because she held any particular admiration for the school or any of its teachers. However, as her studies and training at U.A. have continued, she's come to realize that being a hero means more to her than just a job and that she truly wants to help others. Haru is a closeted lesbian and her sexuality is a great source of insecurity for her. This stems from not being properly introduced to or taught about anything LGBT+ related while growing up, leading to her being somewhat instinctively fearful of her gayness. She also constantly worries about what her late mother would think of her and whether or not she would accept her. Since she already sees her sexuality in a negative light, she assumes her mother would, too. Uncovering the scars on her face makes her freeze up and have flashbacks to the day her mother died. She doesn't like people seeing them so she always keeps her right eye covered. History Haru's father died before she was born. Her mother Aya, shaken by the event on top of being a workaholic by nature, began spending more and more time on the streets fighting crime. As a result, she was hardly ever at home, leaving Haru to be cared for by various neighbors. To make up for her mother's absence, Haru would instead watch news reports on TV or look up clips on the Internet covering her heroic achievements. As a result, she came to idolize her mother, though she didn't know much about her personally and rarely interacted with her. Haru's Quirk manifested when she was around four. One day, she snuck into the kitchen to steal snacks and found that they'd been moved up to a very high shelf. No matter how hard she tried, Haru couldn't reach them and just as she was about to give up, her Quirk activated for the first time, allowing her to successfully retrieve the snacks. Eight years ago, when Haru was nine years old, Aya took her to visit her Hero Office for the day in an attempt to bond with her daughter. As she was giving her a tour, a brawl broke out between two rival gangs in the street right outside the office. Aya sprang into action to stop the fighting and Haru followed after her, watching the action from the entrance of the building. A volley of shrapnel was sent flying towards her and Aya rushed over to shield her. Some of the shrapnel pierced her right eye and shredded up the side of her face, but most of it was blocked by her mother's body, fatally injuring her. After the death of her mother, Haru was taken in by Itsuko Taikan, an old friend of her parents. They had a rocky start and hardly talked to each other for over a month until one night a huge thunderstorm hit. Itsuko was worried about Haru being scared of all the thunder and lightning and went to check up on her, but ended up getting scared herself. Instead, Haru was the one who came to her aid rather than the other way around and the two of them bonded over the experience. Haru spent around half a year recovering from the events surrounding her mother's death, which caused her schooling to be put on hold. To help take her mind off the traumatic experience and also let out her energy, she began going on runs and dabbling in parkour. This hobby would continue into her high school years and form the basis of of her Hero training. She eventually enrolled in and was accepted into U.A.'s Department of Heroics, where she met and befriended Kanatsu Koizumi and Mafuyu Rin. Though she didn't win or make the top 3 in her first-year Sports Festival, she did manage to gain the attention of a few Pros, mostly those who happened to recognize her mother's Quirk. Once she earned her Provisional Hero License, she began interning with Ever-Sense, which then caused her to slowly drift apart from Natsu and Yu. Plot U.A. Sports Festival Arc After finishing up patrols for the day, Itsuko talks to Haru about the upcoming U.A. Sports Festival. When asked about her training for the event, Haru admits that she doesn't intend to try incredibly hard this time around, seeing as she already did well enough the previous year and has already secured a steady internship with Itsuko. She reasons that since she's in a good place already, she ought to help out her peers by giving them more room to stand out and build up their own reputations. Itsuko quickly discourages this line of thinking, reminding her that plenty of Pro Heroes would still be keeping an eye on her whether it was because of last year's Sports Festival or because of her ongoing internship. A performance drop might be viewed negatively as laziness. She goes on to say that building up a network of contacts is important in any line of work, heroics included, and that the Festival is the best time for her to make connections with more Heroes. Their conversation ends with Itsuko encouraging her adopted daughter to do her best in the Sports Festival and gives her the rest of the week off so she can prepare. Haru thanks her and the two head home while discussing that night's dinner. Quirk and Abilities '''Exceptional Reflexes:' Her reaction speed is quite fast. She's able to catch people's hands and feet in mid-movement with her Quirk and disarm them pretty quickly. She's also able to lock her beams onto moving targets. Most of her fighting style revolves around evading her opponents, which she's pretty good at. However, because she's missing her right eye, this leaves her with a pretty large and noticeable blind spot (though she is working to get around this weakness or at least make it less obvious). Athleticism: Haru has been training herself, albeit informally, in running and parkour since a young age. Because of this, she's a very fast runner and climber, has a great sense of balance, and is capable of many impressive acrobatic feats like flips and running up and along walls for a short distance. Her performance isn't noticeably hindered by extreme external conditions, like heavy rain or wind. While not at the level of a contortionist, she has been shown to be quite flexible as well, able to perform splits with ease and make near-fluid movements while dodging attacks. She also has very good depth perception, allowing her to estimate both vertical and horizontal distance with great accuracy to help her gauge jumps. All of this is further aided by her Tractor Beam Quirk, which she uses in conjunction with her athletic prowess to swing and jump around her environment. High Endurance: '''She can run and fight without tiring for long stretches of time. '''Stealth: Due to her training with Ever-Sense, who specializes in tracking and stealth, Haru has gained some skill in this area as well. She's very good at sneaking up on people and surprising them. Others continuously remark that she's very light on her feet. Quirk Tractor Beam: '''Her Quirk allows her to project green laser-like beams that attach to objects. She can simply hold things, lift and throw them, or, if they're heavy enough and well-grounded, pull herself towards them. People caught in her beams are frozen in place for as long as she's holding them, making it effective for immobilizing opponents. So far she can reach up to 6 meters. Haru enjoys playing around with her Quirk and is constantly finding creative ways to use it. As a result, she is very skilled at using what many U.A. teachers and Pro Heroes have labeled a tricky ability to master. Haru most commonly forms one large beam with one or both hands, splitting it off with her fingers if necessary for more precision. She can also project beams from her feet and eye. Her natural abilities and the properties of her Quirk make her ideal for pursuing and capturing villains. Offensively, she uses her Quirk to disrupt her opponents' movements and catch them off guard. She can also use her beams like extensions of her arms, increasing her range both for grabbing people and for hitting them with a weapon or blunt object. Equipment '''Hero Costume: '''Haru's costume is designed to enable faster running, though some of it is admittedly for aesthetic. * '''Goggles: Kind of just there to make her look cool, but they do protect her when she's running through rain or other vision-hindering conditions. * Running shirt: Cuts down on wind resistance. * Belt: Again, just there to make her look cool. * Shoes: Very high-quality running shoes. They have a special taser function built in; by tapping the toes twice, the entire sole of the shoe becomes electrified. The wattage output isn't very high, but it is enough to briefly stun an average-sized adult. Relationships Itsuko Taikan Itsuko Taikan, aka Ever-Sense, is Haru's mentor and adoptive mother. She is also an old friend of her parents, having dated both of them in the past (though the latter fact was kept secret from Haru). They'd seen each other a few times when Haru was growing up (due to Itsuko's secret relationship with Aya), but Haru first formally met her shortly after the death of her mother, when Itsuko came to take her home. Things were initially awkward between the two. Haru was mostly unresponsive due to her recent trauma and wasn't yet ready to trust a woman she'd hardly met before. Meanwhile, Itsuko wasn't completely confident in the new parenting role she'd found herself in and was unsure of how to approach the girl. Slowly, however, the two began to open up to each other. Now, they share a very close bond as both mentor and student and as parent and child. This bond has only grown since Haru started interning at her Hero Office. They're very in sync both in and out of combat situations and can easily tell what the other is thinking. Thanks to her Quirk, Itsuko can also tell how Haru is feeling most of the time, though she's sure not press her when she sees it's not a good time to. Aya Midorinawa Haru didn't see much of her mother growing up. Most of what Haru knew about her came from watching her actions reported on TV and hearing her classmates talk about her. Because of this, she came to idolize Aya and regarded her with very high respect. While Haru doesn't often show it, her mother's death weighs heavily on her and she feels somewhat guilty about it since Aya died protecting her. This guilt caused her admiration to warp into an immense fear. Haru feels intimidated by her mother's fame and legacy and constantly worries about what she would think of her if she were still alive. She sometimes comes into Haru's imagination as a sort of phantom questioning her actions and choices, particularly when it comes to her sexuality. Kanatsu Koizumi They were in the same class during their first year at U.A. and became good friends. Even though Haru doesn't have much time to hang out with her due to her internship and they ended up in different classes their second year, the two of them are still rather close. Mafuyu Rin Haru befriended her during their first year and, along with Natsu, helped her improve her Japanese language skills. They don't see each other much outside of class due to Haru's hero internship, but they still talk a lot during school hours. Trivia * She puts gel in her bangs to keep them from flipping up and exposing her scars. * Her family name is made up of the kanji 緑 (midori; green) and 縄 (nawa; rope). Her first name, 琥春 (Koharu), is made up of the first half of the word "琥珀" (kohaku; amber), referring to her eye color, and "春" (haru; spring). ** Like the rest of her friends, Koharu's name contains the word for one of the four seasons. In Koharu's case, this is "spring" (春 haru). * The specific shade of green her hair is colored is called harlequin, referencing her hero name and loose jester theme. * Her favorite anime is Prince of Stride. * She is a year older than her classmates since she had to repeat a grade in elementary school. Concept/Creation Trivia * Koharu was created with two concepts in mind: 1. A Quirk that isn't inherently combative but could still have offensive use, and 2. A hero who swings around like Spider-Man. I thought of the Quirk first, then formed her personality and traits around it. * Her character has gone through a lot of alterations, but one thing that's never changed is the fact that she's gay af. * I have no idea where I got "Green Jester" from. * She was known as "Koha''ku''" for a long time before I decided on the seasonal naming scheme with my characters.